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A Supreme Court decision is the Law of the Land, unless Christian bigots dislike what the court says.

The Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton, probably doesn’t really give a damn who marries whom. But he’s no stranger to what works in Texas politics, and what works there is playing to the persecution myths of the white Christian heterosexual cis-gender males, the most grotesquely over-privileged group ever to walk the face of the earth. In a press release he called Friday’s opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges “a judge-made edict that is not based in the law or the Constitution” and said it “diminishes faith in our system of government and the rule of law.”

Inevitably, this emboldened petty officials around Texas to disobey the law, and sure enough we have Hood County clerk Katie Lang saying she won’t issue any same-sex marriage licenses because “It’s my religious liberty, my belief in traditional marriage”.

Here’s what they don’t get. And I see I am going to have to make this simple enough so that even stupid people like Paxton and Lang can understand it. So I will take a cue from Randall Munroe of xkcd when he explained the Saturn V launcher that took us to the moon. (I hope Paxton and Lang aren’t in denial about that, also.) Munroe decided to use only the thousand – sorry: ten hundred – most common words to explain one of humanity’s most amazing technological accomplishments, and created a panel called Up Goer Five. Along those lines:

When two people love each other they might want to share a home, they might want to share it for all of their lives. They might want a baby, or a few. The state where they live likes this, because having families in the places where people live makes those places nicer. So the state gives people who share this way some good stuff. They are allowed to visit each other in the hospital, without being bothered. They are allowed to pay less money to the state, and to have easier ways to make the papers for doing that. The state accepts less money because the people making a family help make the state a better place in ways money doesn’t help with. Families, love and sharing are just good for the state and all the people who live there.

Now, the people who say what’s allowed in all the states have said that no state can stop two people who want to love, share and make a family from doing that. Even if the two people don’t fit the old idea of “one of them has to be a man and the other one has to be a woman.”

Some people think a god will be angry about this. But any people who care about what the god thinks are free to stick to the old idea when they make a family.

At least Cleburne County (AR) Clerk Dana Guffey had the integrity to resign over this issue, rather than remain in office, refuse to do her job, and impose her religious bigotry on others. Kudos to her for that.

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Notes from the Republican clown car… or as they like to think of it, presidential campaign.

Jeb Bush has been running for the office ever since he noticed that his brother W (for “Worst-ever”) did not actually get indicted for treason. But he’s afraid that people might actually remember that brother of his who lied us into a war in Iraq because twenty Saudis trained in Afghanistan to crash four planes into the sides of buildings in the US. And who crashed the economy into the side of a mountain in order to make his billionaire buddies billioner.

So his campaign’s official logo conveniently omits something:

That’s right – no last name. Seems about right. If my name were Bush I would probably just move to the Caymans so I could be closer to my bribes hard-earned wealth. story

Meanwhile, back at Clown Central, the clowniest clown who ever clowned has agreed to a ride in the Clown Car

So now the Party of Nope is ever more solidly the Party of Dope. Let’s hope he gets sued by Neil Young soon for illegally using “Rockin’ in the Free World” as his campaign music. Is it possible there’s another song that more completely indicts the sliminess of the 1980s selfish-conservertarian swamp that spawned The Donald? ‘nother story

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When I was a kid, I was taught that if I was in any kind of trouble out there, the best sight I could hope to see would be a policeman. But the experience of black kids my age was not so positive even then (remember, I am older than dirt). And it’s not improving.
People say that “it’s no worse, it’s just on the news more.” Well, good! If it’s on the news more, that is probably the main thing that will create the pressure to fix it.

I am working on confirming that the process that Rochester NY has in place is fair. I started down this road as detailed here, and my work continues now with a contact made with the office of one of our at-large City Council reps to understand some of the possible gaps in the process and what can be done to shore them up if they are real.